Chain Reaction (31 page)

‘Right you are, Sir Hugh. Consider it done,’ said Dougal as behind him Lovette crept from the room.

Damn. And now she has gone, decamped, flit, done a bunk and no one, it seems, saw her go. There’s a loose canon on the deck of the Royal Yacht and it is imperative that she be found before she can fire and hole the ship and sink it to the deepest fathoms of the majestic ocean.

Dougal is forced to explain how he arrived at the flat in good time, only to find Arabella flown and her friend Charlie on the phone dressed in a vulgar jade-green nightie and in a state of excited concern. ‘Disappeared—and in her condition,’ cried Charlie. ‘There’s no note—nothing. She’s not been in touch with home either. This is all so very worrying and not like Peaches at all. I knew we shouldn’t have gone out without her last night. If we’d had the slightest idea that this blasted engagement was about to be announced—did you know, by the way? You must have—you’re one of Them, aren’t you! Well, we wouldn’t have dreamed of going without her. None of her other friends have seen her either, and she’s not been into work for days, ever since she gave in her notice. Oh God, oh God, and now I’m going to have to call her parents and tell them she was pregnant. They’ll be so devastatingly upset I can’t bear it! They’ll probably blame my bad influence, and I suppose the police will have to be informed…’

Dougal was stunned. She couldn’t have gone. She was expecting him at ten-thirty. She’d assured him she would be here waiting. ‘Sit down and relax and let me make you a coffee,’ he offers hurriedly. ‘What makes you think she’s gone? She could have popped out for a morning paper and lost track of the time…’

‘No, no, it’s not like that! Some of her things have gone—
Beppo has gone.’

‘Beppo?’

‘Her old teddy bear. She’d never go anywhere without him. Her overnight bag has gone. Her brush, her comb, her make-up, her knickers—there’s none left in the drawer, I looked. And Mags is at work and I can’t contact her there.’

‘I’ll get in touch with Mags. She might well know where she is. Just leave all this to me. I will also inform Arabella’s parents if necessary.’

‘But I ought to. I am her friend and I am responsible.’

‘I can do it much more effectively, and probably without filling them with gloom which you, in this hysterical state, are quite likely to do. I will also contact the police although they won’t do much for twenty-four hours. After all, Arabella is a grown woman and can take care of herself.’ Even as he said this Dougal found it hard to believe. She was an innocent, such a trusting, foolish creature. She’d be had by the first con man to pass her way.

Charlie, at her wits’ end, and stung by terrible guilt, flung herself into the attack. ‘This is all your friend Jamie’s fault, playing around with feelings as if nobody’s count but his own. He should be told. Jamie should be the one to feel responsible, should anything happen to poor little Peaches.’

‘Hey, Charlie, sit down, calm down, and let you and me make a list of anywhere Peaches is likely to be, and I will get someone on to it right away.’

But Charlie, red-faced and fraught, eyed him with angry suspicion. ‘You’re trying to do a cover-up job, that’s what all this is about, isn’t it? You’re not worried about Peaches at all. You’re just shitting yourself in case the press get hold of this and your precious master is dragged through the dirt.’

‘Charlie! Please don’t.’ He was trying to force his eyes off a mind-boggling display of Charlie’s underparts, most upsetting. ‘You can believe whatever you like but I am genuinely fond of Arabella and would do anything to make sure she was safe. I have the contacts to be able to take the necessary action, talk to her family, see the neighbours, get hold of her bank records and cash withdrawals and so follow up on where she might be. That’s if your worst fears are confirmed and she’s blundered out of here with no plan in her mind, just a deep unhappiness.’

Charlie sobbed, pushed back her tumble of hair. She lit a cigarette and drew on it deeply, tapping it nervously over the ashtray. ‘I know that’s what she’s done. It would be just like her, to act without thinking—you know how soft and silly she is. Oh, how hurt she must have been when she saw Jamie and Frances posing together like that. We should have been here with her! Oh God, when Peaches needed us we weren’t around. It’s luck she didn’t collapse from the shock. She really genuinely loves him, you know, and she’s never been in love before.’

‘I have to make a few telephone calls, so why don’t you just lie back and drink your coffee while it’s hot and leave everything to me for the moment.’ And then, as an afterthought he added, ‘I shall go and fetch you a dressing gown at the same time.’

‘Don’t think you can pander to me!’
Charlie rose and faced him, her fists stiff at her sides. ‘Who are you anyway? You’re not one of Jamie’s friends, are you? Some kind of shady minder? Working undercover for Them? The Government? Or are you from the police? Do you carry a gun? How come you can nose into somebody’s bank account without their permission, and why were you always hanging around poor Peaches? What the hell did you want from her? Were you bullying her, is that it? Were you threatening her with what would happen if she didn’t play by the rules? You disgust me, people like you, parasites, creepy crawlies, dressing up in your fancy robes and floating around with cushions and sticks. You’re weird, Dougal, d’you know that?
You’re so bloody weird.’
Charlie, exhausted, broke down and flung herself on the sofa in tears.

He let her give vent to her gathered fury and then gently, averting his eyes, Dougal covered her up modestly before making for the phone extension in Arabella’s bedroom. He had to inform Sir Hugh at once, much as he dreaded the reaction.

No trace. No sign in any of the obvious places. Automatically security was increased around James Henry Albert but even his closest detectives were not given a reason why. Luckily he was up in Scotland where even a grouse stood out against a hill, not in the middle of crowded London, and he seemed to be behaving at the moment, not sloping off as yet to frequent his old haunts. Must be the influence of the managing Frances, or maybe he was at last aware of the mayhem he had left behind him down south.

Sir Hugh ponders in his restlessness. If this one went wrong it could badly affect his career. ‘What is she likely to do, that’s what we’ve got to try and discover.’

Dougal reminds him, as if he needs reminding: ‘But she’s never done anything like this before. This is quite out of character, according to all our information.’

‘What about her old beau—Thomas the Tank, they call him. Has he been checked out?’

‘Yes, all her friends have been checked. It was comparatively easy. They’re a very tight bunch, you see, mostly old schoolchums who have kept in touch and go round being Sloaney together. Unless…’ Dougal stops dead in his tracks. He whips round and stares at Sir Hugh, half-demented. ‘Damn! Why the hell didn’t I think of that to start with? Belinda Hutchins—the one she calls “Tusker”…’

‘Do stop rambling, Dougal.’

‘I told you about her, the girl at The Grange, with that has-been crooner, Jacy from Sugarshack! It’s a long shot, and I’m probably totally wrong on this, but that meeting with Belle would have stuck in her mind. They seemed very close in the short time I saw them together.’

Sir Hugh proceeds slowly, stepping cautiously across the thickly carpeted floor as he speaks his thoughts out loud. ‘If she has gone there, and it sounds as if you might have hit on something at last, Dougal, if she has gone to The Grange we can be
fairly
sure the secret is out. She wouldn’t have fled all that way for nothing. Perhaps our little friend has more up there than we credited her for,’ he looks at Dougal and taps his forehead, pausing briefly in his steady pacings, ‘although I always suspected as much. Don’t you see, Dougal, if she has gone to stay with her old friend, Belinda, she will have confided everything, and maybe, just maybe, she realised something was in the air with the clinic visit coinciding so unfortunately with the public announcement of James’ engagement!’

‘Damn,’ says Dougal. ‘That puts the cat among the pigeons.’

‘It most certainly does. And it means that before proceeding further in that direction we must take extra care. We must ascertain whether or not our assumptions are right, and if they are we must find out all we can about this dude and his moll.’

‘Leave that to me,’ says Dougal.

‘I already have,’ replies Sir Hugh. ‘This could be a sticky business and I cannot afford to dirty my hands. That’s your job. You’d better not mess this one up though, or it’s curtains as far as you are concerned. So for your own sake, my boy, I should jolly well remember that.’

‘H
URRY UP, MISS BENSON,
do. We haven’t got all day.’

Miss Benson, with a handful of nails gripped between her teeth, the metal setting her nerves on edge, is going as fast as she possibly can. She is not used to manual labour even though she works with animals. She is a trained animal nurse, and a good one, and not given to doing odd handy jobs at the veterinary practice where she works; she leaves that to the trainees.

Mrs Peacock is pleased with herself this morning, not only because D Day has finally arrived, but also because when she entered her flat she found a sympathetic reply from the Queen waiting on the doormat.

However, Miss Benson, who has taken a fortnight off for this enterprise, is rightly concerned that if she makes too much noise with her hammering she will attract the attention of the neighbourhood. ‘Don’t worry about that, dear,’ Mrs Peacock assures her, sitting watching her struggles from her comfortable chair, agitating with her stick while with the other eye she keeps watch by the far window. ‘They’ll think it’s the new people moving in. You could set the place ablaze and no one would take any notice they’re that wrapped up in their own affairs. Just keep going, you’re doing very well.’

Miss Benson knows she is not, and that Mrs Peacock is merely being encouraging. The crisscross planks nailed against the windows could have fitted better, but there it is, there’s no time to be finicky, just as long as they hold firm, which they do, nailed as they are to the wooden sills below and the solidly built pelmets above. Unfortunately the plastic surrounding the double glazing cannot be utilised for this purpose although that would have made a neater job. It is also a good thing that this is a compact little flat with only five windows because Miss Benson’s arms and wrists are weakening fast.

Once these are done there is only the door to be barricaded when Miss Benson has gone, and Mrs Peacock reckons that if Emily starts off the holes first, she will be able to manage that job herself, balanced on a chair. Once she has abandoned ship Miss Benson’s work will not be over; as acting public relations person she will have her hands full, not only that but it’s her job to make sure Mrs Peacock receives all necessary supplies via the secret floorboard connection they have worked on under the carpet in Miss Benson’s lavatory. For who knows how long Mrs Peacock will have to hold out here until they finally capitulate and allow her to stay in her home, and die there if she wants to… Or what foul means will be employed by the shamed authorities to prise her from her sanctuary unless a supportive public is made fully aware of the situation first.

In this, surely, the Queen’s letter is going to be a boon.

It said,
Dear Mrs Peacock, The Queen has asked me to pass on to you her sincere sympathies on hearing about your present plight. She has asked the local authorities and your local Member of Parliament to supply her with all relevant information and has requested to be kept informed as to your future circumstances. Yours sincerely, L. M. Stokes, Lady in Waiting.

‘That’ll go nicely on the door once you’ve shut it behind you, and you’re going to the stationer’s down the road for photocopies, aren’t you?’ Irene Peacock fretted. ‘Don’t forget, in case they rip the original off.’

‘I haven’t forgotten. Just you stop worrying now and relax. Everything is in hand. You’ve got a good supply of ciggies and gin, and if you run out I’ll send more down. Your glasses are mended and they’re there on the table. There’s magazines, all your favourites. And there’s enough tinned food in that cupboard of yours to last six months.’

‘If only I’d had a decent pantry here, like I had at the bungalow. I can’t understand how they can be allowed to build anything without a pantry and an airing cupboard. So necessary. Almost as important as a bathroom, when you think about it. I never imagined that one day I would be reduced to a mere cupboard.’

Miss Benson is almost too weak to reply. She steps down off her little stool-ladder at last, trembling with exhaustion, and regards the last of the windows. ‘That’s done, thank goodness,’ she says, pleased with her handiwork. ‘They’ll not break through there without making a hell of a racket.’

‘Thank you so much, Miss Benson.’ Mrs Peacock rises creakily to put the kettle on again. ‘I really do appreciate everything you have done.’

‘I was glad to help,’ says her friend with feeling. ‘You know I was. It’s a way of relieving my own frustrations. I only wish I could have done something so simple in order to help my own mother.’

‘Poor soul,’ commiserates Mrs Peacock. ‘The poor, poor soul.’

It hadn’t taken long to convince Miss Benson to give her support to the plan, once they’d been out together a few times and Miss Benson realised how terribly unhappy Mrs Peacock was at Greylands. It came as a shock at first, well, of course it did, the very idea of a seventy-five-year-old woman blocking herself in her flat and refusing to come out until they agreed to her simple requirements.

‘What if anything should happen to you while you’re in there?’ was Miss Benson’s first alarmed reaction. ‘I would be directly responsible.’

‘There you go, just like the rest of them. Do I have to remind you, too, that
I am responsible for my own actions.
I might be forgetful at times, and I do behave oddly now and again, I know that, I admit it, but I am seventy-five and surely, at my age, there should be some leeway given for little eccentricities.’